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Wake-Walker's La finta giardiniera travels to La Scala

James Imam

It takes a special production to ensure listeners do not get helplessly lost in the messy operatic overgrowth of La finta giardinieria. Written by Mozart at the age of 18, the score possesses little of the trailblazing innovation that would characterise his mature operas. Conventional arias are joined together with tiresome stretches of recitative, in a dreary musical terrain that only occasionally lights up to flashes of musical genius. The story centres on Sandrina, a noblewoman...


A pair of exceptional voices for a renewed Puritani

Xavier Pujol

A new production of I Puritani, Bellini’s last opera, a highly esteemed title at Liceu, was chosen to inaugurate the new season. The vocal demands of I Puritani are fearsome and great voices are required to achieve success in the two main roles. Liceu made sure this was covered by casting one of the trendy couples of today’s bel canto scene. Mexican tenor Javier Camarena and young South African soprano Pretty Yende will be featuring together in five different titles this season...


Ernani at La Scala: Francesco Meli, Ailyn Pérez

James Imam

'Mi raccomando brevità, e fuoco,' is how Verdi illustrated his blueprint for Ernani to his librettist Piave. He can't have been disappointed by the final product. Verdi's fifth opera brims with rollicking tunes, stirring arias and incendiary ensemble numbers -- it is an uninterrupted flow of musical invention. Such has not secured Ernani regular appearances at La Scala. The opera had last appeared at the Milan house 32 years ago, in a production from Luca Ronconi...


Radical but Flawed Presentation of Salome at the London Coliseum

Sam Smith

Despite only being mentioned briefly in the New Testament, the character of Salome has certainly caught the imagination as she has pervaded art, literature and music over the centuries. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark she is described as a girl who pleased King Herod so much at his birthday feast with her dancing that he promised her anything she desired. After consulting Herodias, the husband of Herod and her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a plate, with Herodias...


A recycled Favorite Closes the Liceu season

Xavier Pujol

The Liceu closes its season with the slightly surprising restaging of its own setting (co-production with the Teatro Real de Madrid) of La Favorite’s original French version by Donizetti. This opera had been very popular at the Liceu during the 19th and 20th centuries, with over 200 accumulated performances, although only 10 of which were of the French version and these took place in the early 21st century.  The restaging appears surprising as 16 years ago it was...


Sir Bryn Terfel Stars as Falstaff at the Royal Opera House, Co...

Sam Smith

There are certain operas such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Handel’s Radamisto where one will forgive the odd piece of clunky or prosaic direction if the musical credentials underpinning the evening are strong. There are other pieces, however, such as Ravel’s L’heure espagnole and Shostakovich’s The Nose where, if the staging is not slick from start to finish, the evening is almost wholly undermined. There is actually something unfair about this, because it...


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